


The Horizon Line is Shining Bright

by saltandlimes



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, M/M, there's a lot to think about when youre stuck on a tower with the death star staring you down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: Orson Krennic has his memories to comfort him in the last moments atop the citadel tower on Scarif.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a version of this scene since the first time I saw Rogue One. Then [hyonibeee](http://hyonibeee.tumblr.com/) posted [this incredible piece of art](http://hyonibeee.tumblr.com/post/156698986847/rogue-one-galennic) and said I could write something for it, and this fic was born. 
> 
> I cried while typing this up.

“Leave it.”

The man’s voice filters slowly to him, and after it a growl, a snarl of fury that he recognizes with all his being. Orson groans. 

“Lyra…” he manages to mutter out. It’s just like her to be somewhere behind him, spitting poison onto his bloody shoulders. 

But that can’t be right. Lyra is dead. For years, dead, even though the throb in his shoulder seems to tell him that it was only yesterday. 

Orson takes a gasping breath, ribs aching, shoulder throbbing. He’s cold, dullness spreading out from where his chest and shoulder seem to be fading away from him in a pulsing mass. It can’t be Lyra, there behind him, where he cannot see. He has almost a decade and a half of memories to prove that. He has that much. 

He has Galen. 

Orson lets his eyes slid shut for a moment. For just an instant, he’s back in Galen’s quarters on Eadu, perched on the edge of Galen’s desk. 

_He swings his legs. Galen’s late. He was supposed to be back half an hour ago. Orson glances over at his datapad yet again. He wants this to be a surprise. He doesn’t need to go looking for Galen._

_The door slides open._

_Galen stumbles through, eyes fixed on his datapad. His hair is a mess, long strands falling across his face, others still tucked behind his ears. His pants are rumpled, the creases long gone. Orson smiles in spite of himself. He watches as Galen loosens his collar with his free hand, still not looking up._

_Orson clears his throat._

_Galen startles, head flying up. For a moment, long and hesitating, Galen’s eyes meet his. At first, they’re clouded, Galen’s mind so far away that Orson wonders if he could ever reach that distant country, if there is room for someone else deep inside Galen’s head. Slowly, though, they start to sparkle. A shiver runs down Orson’s spine, and he bites back a gasp. There is something isolating about having Galen’s eyes peer into his. It’s as though the entire universe falls away from Orson, and he’s left there, stripped to the bone. As though his body has been ground away, and he has been rendered immaterial, only a specter, with only the innermost workings of his mind left to him. Galen’s gaze peals him apart and leaves him bleached clean, only the soft, secret parts of him remaining to hold out in his own grasping hands._

_“Orson! I didn’t expect you here.” The moment splinters, and Orson hops off the desk. It’s only a few steps forward, and he’s pulling the datapad out of Galen’s hands, gathering himself back together._

_Galen lets the pad slip from his fingers, eyes still fixed on Orson’s. Orson grins, setting the pad on the table near to the door._

_“What are you doing here?” Galen asks, voice pitchy and high._

_“I wanted to surprise you, Galen,” Orson tell him, reaching up to where Galen’s collar hangs open just the slightest bit. He slips a finger inside and runs it down Galen’s chest, loosening the uniform. Galen shivers when it falls open, cocking his head to one side._

_“Surprise me with what?”_

_“Am I not enough of a surprise myself?” Orson slips his hands inside Galen’s open uniform to squeeze at Galen’s waist. Galen purses his lips._

_“Even you don’t have enough power to just show up on a whim.” His eyes flicker down to the rank bars on Orson’s chest. “Do you?”_

_Orson laughs. He strokes his thumbs over Galen’s sides. Galen still hasn’t completely filled out to where he was before he left Coruscant, and Orson hopes, fleetingly, that it will happen soon, that he will be able to feel Galen, solid underneath his hands. Galen gasps._

_“You do! Orson, tell me!”_

_”It’s mine.” Orson squeezes again, almost wanting to whirl Galen around in his arms._

_“What is?” Galen gasps. “You don’t mean…”_

_“Yes. The whole project. You’re looking at the director of the entire project.”_

_Galen stares. For a moment, stillness hangs between them. Then his hands come up to cup Orson’s face, tipping it upwards. His lips burn against Orson’s as he presses their mouths together. Orson moans, low and desperate, as Galen licks into him. Then Galen’s teeth tease at his lower lip, tugging and working. Orson pulls him closer. He leans against Galen’s chest and worms his hands underneath Galen’s undershirt. His heart throbs as Galen sucks biting kisses into his neck. This, this is their destiny._

The memory fades away in a flash of pain. He’s alone, sprawled on the top of the citadel tower on Scarif, and his entire side is chilled, ice working its way through his veins. He licks his lips with a dry tongue, trying to capture the imagined taste of Galen’s mouth.

When he turns his head sideways, his eyes fill with tears. There, somehow right in front of him, he can see Galen lying sprawled on the tower. Galen’s body, just as he last saw it, in those horrible moments when they dragged him into the shuttle to leave Eadu. In those awful moments when he didn’t realize Galen was dead, when he knew for certain that he would be able to return in just a few hours and they would work everything out. When he didn’t think his last words to Galen would be a taunt and a slap. 

Galen’s face is slack with pain, his shoulders twisted and bones too shattered to ever be repaired. He sees that now. Orson tries to reach out. This must be a phantom, must be nothing more than the fevered workings his slowly shattering mind, but still, he reaches out.

“It was real, wasn’t it?” His voice rasps in his throat, but he tries again, forcing his lungs to expand and his mouth to move.

“It wasn’t a lie, Galen, please.” He could not bear it otherwise. There is nothing to Orson Krennic but what has been formed and built by Galen Erso. If that was all false, if ever dream and gasp, every kiss and stolen moment was a lie, then perhaps every part of Orson is also a lie. 

“You did love me, didn’t you? I loved you, Galen. I loved you so much that I built my entire life for you. Everything I did, I did for us, for our destiny. Please, please Galen. Please tell me you loved me too.”

It is too late though. Galen fades away before his eyes, silent and without answer. It is too late and Orson should have said that twenty, thirty years ago. He should have said it every day, screamed it from the tallest tower on Coruscant. He should have pressed it into Galen’s body, his mind, every morning and every evening. 

Orson looks up and there, on the horizon, the Death Star rises triumphant. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. So this, this is the end. Destroyed by the only child he and Galen ever made, just as their creation will soon be destroyed by itself. He knows Galen well enough to know Orson does not need to seek revenge against Tarkin for his own death. Galen has already wrought revenge enough for both of them. 

His eyes fill with green light. He reaches out to where Galen’s broken body had appeared. 

“Please,” he gasps out. “Please tell me it was real.” 

The world dissolves into brightness.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a large box of tissues next to me. 
> 
> Come sob with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
